Break of Day
by Sara Wolfe
Summary: Lois and Clark have a heart-to-heart. Post Salvation


**Author's Note:** This was written for Divine Intervention's summer fic challenge. Takes place at the end of season nine, no spoilers.

**Break of Day**

Clark found Lois out in the loft of the barn. She was sitting on the couch with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, staring pensively out of the large opening to the night sky beyond.

The storm that the vortex had whipped up had finally died down, with only a light rain falling. The soft sound of the raindrops falling on the roof was rhythmic and soothing, and Clark could see why she'd come out here in the middle of the night. It was peaceful in a way that little else had been, lately.

He stood at the top of the stairs for a moment, just watching her. Her long hair had fallen out of the loose ponytail she'd pulled it into on the drive back from Metropolis, hiding her face from sight. She'd pulled her knees up to her chest, with her arms wrapped around her legs in a protective gesture. Her shoulders were slumped forward as she rested her forehead on her bent knees. And when he saw minute tremors running through her body, he realized that she was crying.

And that answered the question of why she'd left the house for the solitude of the loft. She'd wanted privacy to let herself lose control of her emotions.

He was debating whether or not to leave, to let her finish her breakdown in private, but as he turned to go back down the stairs, his shoes scuffed against the wood, and Lois's head shot up at the sound like a gunshot had gone off.

"Clark?" she asked, quietly, and at the sound of her voice, he became rooted to the floor. No force on Earth could have dragged him away, now.

"Clark, I know you're back there," Lois said, her voice muffled against her legs. "I can hear you brooding."

"I do not brood," Clark said, immediately, in protest.

He crossed the space between them to sit down beside her, leaning back into the familiar softness of the couch.

"You are a champion at brooding," Lois retorted, finally lifting her head to look at him.

Like he'd expected, there were tear tracks streaking down her cheeks and her eyes were puffy from crying. Without even thinking about it, he reached out and gently wiped away the traces of tears, the pad of his thumb brushing underneath her eyes.

"I probably look like hell," Lois said, ruefully, sweeping her hair back behind her shoulders.

"You look beautiful," Clark told her, quietly.

Lois sighed, turning away from him to stare out into the night, again. She was silent for several minutes, but Clark just let her be, willing to wait as long as it took for her to come to terms with everything that had happened, that night.

"So," Lois finally said, breaking the silence, even though she didn't look at him, "where do we go from here?"

"What do you mean?" Clark asked, cautiously.

There was a strange tone in her voice, a hesitancy that he wasn't used to hearing from his normally-outspoken girlfriend. She sounded almost afraid.

"I mean," Lois clarified, "you're the Blur-"

"Yes," Clark said, slowly, his unease growing at the dismay he could hear in her voice.

"And I'm the reporter who writes your story for all of Metropolis to read," Lois finished.

"You're a lot more than that," Clark protested, automatically.

"Am I?" Lois asked, looking over at him, again, and the words were like having a cold bucket of water dashed over his head.

"Lois, you're the love of my life," Clark told her, the words coming unthinkingly, although he knew as soon as he'd said them, that they was nothing less than the complete truth.

"Hasn't seemed much like it, lately," Lois muttered, quietly, and the words were like a knife to the heart.

"Are you saying that you don't want to be together, any more?" he asked, dully, afraid that the answer was going to be yes.

"It doesn't matter what I want," Lois said, and Clark was reminded of her behavior under the influence of the kryptonite-laced persuasion dust, when she'd tried to leave him for his own good.

"Of course it matters!" he cried, his voice cracking with emotion, and she looked at him in surprise. "You matter, Lois," he protested, emphatically. "You're the most important part of my life."

"As the Blur, you kept breaking things off with me," Lois told him. "You said that you were trying to protect me."

"Because things were getting dangerous, and I didn't want you to get hurt," Clark insisted, and the light bulb went on as he realized just what Lois was getting at. "Lois-"

"If things were so dangerous when all we were doing was talking on the phone," Lois went on, quietly, "what's to make it safer now that I know who you really are?"

"It's not like that," Clark said, feeling as though any future he might have had with Lois was slipping rapidly though his fingers.

"How long before you decide that we have to break up, or that we can never see each other," Lois said, as if she hadn't even heard him, "just so that you can protect me?"

"Lois, that won't happen," Clark protested, a note of desperation in his voice. "It can't. Lois, I'd die without you."

That finally got her attention, and she looked over at him, clearly shocked by what she saw on his face.

"Clark," she said, softly, but he was on a roll, now, and he wasn't going to let her interrupt. Not before he'd done and said everything he could to make her stay.

"I love you," he said, forcefully, biting out the words as they got stuck in his throat. "I've never felt about anyone the way I feel about you. You butted into my life, and just became everything. I can't imagine a life without you – no, I don't _want_ to imagine a life without you. And that scares me, sometimes."

There were tears in Lois's eyes, again, and Clark hated the thought that he'd made her cry twice in one night. But, he plowed on. What he had to say was too important to keep bottled up any longer, and he couldn't keep putting off telling her. Not if he didn't want her to walk away.

"I can't stand the thought of you being hurt," he continued, softer, now. "So, I tried to protect you. But, you weren't going to let me wrap you up like glass-"

"Not a chance in hell," Lois stated, definitively, making him smile at the determined tone in her voice.

"I went about everything the wrong way," Clark confessed. "I hurt you, both as Clark and as the Blur, and that was the last thing on Earth that I wanted to do. Lois, I'm so sorry."

Lois had fallen silent, again, and Clark's heart clenched as he waited for her response. The silence stretched between them, unbearable this time as he waited for the hammer to fall. Then, Lois's hand snuck out from underneath the blanket on her shoulders, her palm settling against his as she twined their fingers together.

"You weren't the only one who made mistakes," she said, softly. "I lied to you about talking to the Blur, and that must have scared you half to death, knowing that I wasn't talking to you. And that would have pushed you to do what you did."

"Yeah," Clark admitted, quietly. "For a while, I didn't know who you were talking to, and I think that was the scariest part of all."

Lois squeezed his hand, gently, and, emboldened by her response, he shifted around on the couch and tugged her backwards until she was lying back against his chest. Lois moved easily with him and snuggled into his embrace, tucking her head up under his chin.

"What do you say we start over?" she asked, after a moment. "Hi, I'm Lois Lane, and I'm madly in love with you."

"I'm Clark Kent," he responded, "and you're the love of my life."

"You're the center of my universe," Lois countered, a challenging note in her voice, and Clark laughed at Lois competing over who loved whom more. But, he played along, anyway.

"You're my sun," he shot back, and he could see her mouth quirking up in a smirk.

"You complete me," Lois said, her voice sappily maudlin. "My better half."

"Well, I don't know about that, but I'm certainly the saner half of this partnership," Clark retorted, earning himself a sharp elbow in the ribs in response.

"You're the very air that I breathe," Lois goaded him, teasingly.

"My heartbeat," Clark replied. "My soul mate."

Lois craned her neck around to look up at him, her expression softening as she considered his words.

"Soul mate," she echoed, quietly. "I think I like that one."

"Me, too," Clark told her, as he wrapped his arms more snugly around her.

"You're my everything," Lois finally said, and Clark couldn't think of a better one.

"I love you," he said, instead, and he felt Lois shift in his arms to get more comfortable.

"Love you, too," she replied. "Clark, you really are everything-"

"Ditto," he said, leaning down to kiss her, gently.

When they parted, she settled back against him with a contented sigh, pulling the blanket up to cover them both. Then, as they watched, the sun came up in the distance, golden rays chasing away the last of the rain.

"It's a new day," Lois said, quietly, and Clark knew that she was talking about more than just the sunrise.

"Our new day," he agreed.


End file.
